NEI Exec on CNBC

NEI Vice President Scott Peterson will be a guest on CNBC's Power Lunch program today in about 30 minutes. He'll be debating Paul Gunter of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service -- a familiar face for readers of NEI Nuclear Notes.

UPDATE: Here's an excerpt of what Scott had to say:

“Wall Street is warming up very nicely to the prospect of new nuclear power plants. ... The interest in the financial community is very high in the construction of new nuclear plants.”

...

“We have a tremendous demand for electricity facing us in the next 20 years. We need a diverse energy portfolio going forward to meet that demand, and clearly nuclear energy has to be a part of that.”

...

“We don’t have a safer industry in the United States than the nuclear power industry. We have proven that over decades, particularly over the last 10 years, where our plants are operating at a 90 percent efficiency around the clock, and at the lowest cost of any electricity producer other than hydro. You simply can’t do that unless you’re operating safely.”

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